contractors set up in towns across the Gulf Coast to offer their services. There were tree removers, stump grinders, roofers and a slew of other workers who were willing to do whatever was needed, for a price. The problem was finding one that would help without hurting the homeowner's pocketbook.

Frazier, a senior marketing major at Southern Miss, is from Gulfport but stayed in Hattiesburg after the storm to take care of her damaged home. When most graduating seniors were starting their final year with the celebrations of returning to campus, Frazier spent hours on the living room floor of her new apartment sorting through dozens of contractor flyers.

"There were so many contractors in Hattiesburg after the hurricane," Frazier said. "Every time I would go back to the house to move things, there would be more notices in my mailbox from contractors. I must have gotten more than two dozen flyers from out-of-state contractors."

After a major natural disaster, it is not uncommon for out-of-state contractors to move into cities and towns in the path. While many want to help, some want to make a quick buck, and Frazier wanted to make sure that she wasn't taken advantage of.

And she had good reason to worry. Shady contractors were taking advantage of people across the country, including their employees.

In New Orleans some laborers are earning $40 an hour to gut and rebuild flood-damaged homes. The outstanding rate has lured many unskilled, undocumented workers to southeastern Louisiana, where they sleep in tent cities or crowded motel rooms and are easily cheated by their employers, construction industry experts say.

Derrel Cohoon, chief executive officer at construction trade group Louisiana Associated General Contractors, told the Chicago Tribune on Jan. 24, that the group has received many reports about exploitation of those workers who are not getting paid.

Frazier chose ten companies to inspect her home and give her an estimate to remove the trees. "Most of them were around the same cost, but there were a few that were a couple of thousand dollars higher than the rest," she said.

Five months after the hurricane, there are fewer outside contractors in many smaller towns, like Hattiesburg. With the reduction of out-of-state advertisements on telephone poles, some people believe most of the cash-hungry contractors have left Hattiesburg.

With the outflow of out-of-state contractors, people are now finding trouble dealing with local contractors who have overextended themselves.

Melissa McDaniel, coordinator for information services for the Southern Miss Alumni Association, has been dealing with contractors for her severely damaged house as well.

"I asked for three estimates to rebuild my house and they all were about the same price," McDaniel said. "The hardest part was actually finding someone local who was willing to take on another job. So it took a while to get started, but now it is going pretty quickly."

McDaniel said she looked for someone local so she could get references from people she knew and trusted.

Linda Frazier, Leigh's mother who lives in Gulfport, echoed McDaniel's sentiments about the difficulty of finding a contractor.

"I really wanted to hire someone I knew I could trust. When I found someone, it was difficult because they had so many other jobs to work on as well," Linda said. "So it's been really slow on the Coast."

While most of the major work in Linda's home is complete, it was difficult to find craftsman and specialized contractors who have the time to do things like paint, build cabinets or lay sod. She said it's hard to set a schedule because everyone is so busy that they can't always make it when they say they will.

"Some days it's great," Linda said. "And some days I feel like nothing gets done. It's discouraging sometimes but in the end it will all work out."


Ethan Bratton is a senior journalism major at the University of Southern Mississippi . The After Katrina Newswire is a project of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism at USM (www.usm.edu/afterkatrina).  This story can be reprinted with this credit included.